


Saving Frances Carfax

by PlaidAdder



Series: Missing Pages [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14394420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: I came to Lausanne because coming to Lausanne was something novel, interesting, and fairly cheap to do. I stayed at the Hotel National, where I met a number of other aimless and drifting persons in search of pleasure, or escape, or rest. I became friendly with a German couple who were on holiday in Lausanne from their work as missionaries in South America. Yesterday, we 'did the sights.' This included--as our guidebook dictated that it should--a visit to that most model and modern Continental institutions, the Maison des Alienes. The house of those who are in some way astray. In plain English: the insane asylum.That is where I still am.That is where I will be, it seems, for some time.****In which we find out a few things we didn't know about what happened to the Lady Frances Carfax. You might want to read the rest of the series first.





	Saving Frances Carfax

June ---, 1891

Like all the other English ladies of my acquaintance, I was taught in my girlhood to keep a diary. Unlike some of them, I deduced later on that we are encouraged to do so in order that our mothers--or, if as is often the case they can't be bothered, our governesses and maids--could read the secrets we confided to them. Keeping all that in mind, I begin again, after a lapse of some thirty years, a daily record of my thoughts and activities. It is not unlikely that someone will have a need to consult these pages in order to determine who I am, what I am doing here, and where I came from. That someone, I think, may even be myself.

To begin with, then, I will state the case plainly:

My Christian name is Frances. I was born and raised at Rufton Hall in ---shire. My brother is the Earl of Rufton. He has the estate, the title, and nearly everything else of which my parents died possessed. All I have are the family jewels and an annuity of seven hundred a year.

My proper title is the Lady Frances Carfax. The "lady" marks me as one of those envied but unfortunate creatures who are forbidden by the gods of our ancestors to supplement our incomes or stimulate our intellects by doing any kind of real work.

I came to Lausanne because there are approximately half a dozen things that a lady of my means can do in England, and at the age of forty-one I am tired of all of them. There is a basement room at Rufton Hall filled with my water-colors. There is no chair at Rufton Hall which stands in any need of another embroidered cushion. I cannot afford to be a patron of the arts. Philanthropy, when all one has to give is one's time, is soon revealed to be a noxious pursuit. I am not of a literary bent. The one real joy I ever had at Rufton Hall was riding; and my favorite horse, after her death last year, was not replaced. My brother is putting all of his money now into renovating the Hall, of which he cannot legally rid himself. I did not marry when I could have, and now I never will.

I came to Lausanne because coming to Lausanne was something novel, interesting, and fairly cheap to do. I stayed at the Hotel National, where I met a number of other aimless and drifting persons in search of pleasure, or escape, or rest. I became friendly with a German couple who were on holiday in Lausanne from their work as missionaries in South America. Yesterday, we 'did the sights.' This included--as our guidebook dictated that it should--a visit to that most model and modern Continental institutions, the  _Maison des Alienes._ The house of those who are in some way astray. In plain English: the insane asylum.

That is where I still am.

That is where I will be, it seems, for some time.

***

June ---, 1891

Being confined in a Swiss madhouse is not as novel an experience as one might imagine. The single room, with its narrow single bed, rough but warm blankets, single chair, nightstand, basin, and commode, is not unlike the typical room in an inexpensive  _pension_. Some of those rooms, indeed, even have bars on the windows, though in theory that is to keep thieves  _out,_ and not to keep lunatics  _in_. But as to waking alone in a strange room, dressing myself, and wondering what time breakfast will be served at this new establishment--all of these things are familiar. There are, it is true, a few piquant new details. For instance, after I was wrestled into a nightgown last evening, all of my own clothes were confiscated. I have been provided with a cotton blouse and a skirt and jacket of rough serge, with woolen stockings, lightweight slippers, and a plain starched linen cap, all in colors ranging from dishwater to dun. Fortunately, they did not go so far as to confiscate my underthings. It is providential that I learned early how to conceal the economies I was making, and to cut corners first where they would not be visible. My poor plain corset, unadorned and yellowed with age and use, could not tempt even the most desperate of thieves.

And so, after awakening to discover that my consignment to this madhouse is not in fact a dream, I dressed myself in the madwoman's uniform. After washing my face and putting my hair in order as best I could, I heard a ringing of loud bells that made the whole building vibrate. A moment afterward, my door was opened by a stout, red-faced woman of fifty with frowzy hair and an unpromising temperament. She addressed me in French as Lucille. I endeavoured to make her understand, in her native tongue, that my name was not Lucille, that I was in fact the Lady Frances Carfax, that I had been confined under false pretenses, and that my family would, once informed of the situation, handsomely recompense anyone who had helped free me from this place. Either my French is far more imperfect than my governesses led me to believe, or the staff here have been instructed to ignore all such pleas for assistance. Indeed, if I had the running of this institution, I should certainly give such directions.

 Berthe, for that the name of my new attendant, conducted me to the refectory. This I had seen on my visit the day before, though I had observed it from the safety of the balcony that runs round all four walls, for the convenience of visitors as well as monitors. It is a very large, perfectly square, high-ceilinged room taken up by two rows of heavy oak tables, to each of which has been drawn up two long oaken benches and one armchair for the monitor. Above the balcony, there are large windows running along two of the walls, and the morning light comes in brightly. It had all seemed, at the time, quiet and orderly; and quiet and orderly it was now, as we filed in two rows into the room. I took up what appeared to be my designated seat at one of the tables. The morning meal was served round. Before each of us was placed a bowl of porridge and a small glass of milk. I seized my spoon, but a nudge from the woman on my right--a young woman with blonde hair, delicate features, and a consumptive look--indicated that I should wait. We bowed our heads; grace was said; and then we began.

The porridge was edible. That is all that may be said of it; but that is better than nothing. It was so thick that I soon felt the need to refresh myself with my glass of milk. However, I noted that only about half of the women at the table had touched theirs. To my blonde and consumptive seatmate, I murmured, "Le lait? Qu'est-ce que--?"

"It's drugged," she murmured back (in French, of course). "If you're not going to drink it, you should hide it."

As our monitor turned to interfere with a woman on the other side of the table, my seatmate surreptitiously poured her milk into the remains of her porridge. I noticed others doing the same.

I tasted mine cautiously. Though the milk itself had been condensed and sweetened, I detected the bitter taste of laudanum. I drained the glass, set it down, and judged from the strength of the concentration and the size of the glass that the dose could not have been above 15 minims. During my society hostess days, I typically consumed a dose three times that size half an hour before the guests were scheduled to arrive. Even now, when I rarely touch it, a dose that small is a waste of laudanum; it has no effect but to give objects and people a kind of glowing strangeness which becomes tedious in time.

Though I observed my surroundings quite closely, I had no opportunity of repeating my pleas for assistance until my interview with the doctor. It lasted fifteen minutes and was highly unsatisfactory. He was a man about my own age--bald, portly, bespectacled, and with a pallid brow always dewed with perspiration. 

"Now then, Mlle. Pierre," said he, in French. "How are you settling in? Is everything all right with your room?"

"My name is not Lucille Pierre," I replied, in English. "I am the Lady Frances Carfax, and I am not mad. I desire to be released from this institution immediately."

The doctor made a sad little clucking noise with his tongue as she shook his head. "I'm afraid this is a common sort of delusion, Mlle. Pierre, frequently reported by those sufferers who have recently been confided to our care. We need not argue the point right now, for I am sure that in a week or two you will have accepted that you are in fact Mademoiselle Lucille Pierre, that you owned a quite successful draper's shop until you became a stranger to reason, that your brother and sister-in-law have most kindly placed you here so that you will not destroy yourself during your next fit, and that this is much for the best for all concerned. You must understand, Mlle. Pierre, that the horrors you may be associating in your mind with this type of hospital are entirely a thing of the past. Nor do I expect that this will become a permanent home for you, mademoiselle. With rest, and medicine, and work--"

"I am sorry," I interrupted, in English, "but I cannot proceed in this farcical manner. It is as plain as a pikestaff that my native language is not French, and that my vowels, like my visage, were moulded--and long ago, at that--of English stuff. Whatever Dr. Schlessinger has told you about this 'Lucille Pierre' cannot possibly apply to me. You must see that, unless you are a madman yourself."

At this, the doctor merely looked at me with a kind of detached interest, and scribbled down a few lines in a note-book.

"Now if Dr. Schlessinger and his wife have paid you to pretend that I am a patient here," I suggested, "I can hardly blame you for exhibiting a fundamental and besetting human weakness; but I would point out to you that my  _actual_ brother, the Earl of Rufton, would surely be able to pay you twice whatever Dr. Schlessinger has given you."

"Interesting," said the doctor. "Again, Mlle. Pierre, it is useless to debate the matter of your identity, which has already been fully established by M. Pierre your brother; and as your bill is paid in advance for the remainder of this month, we will have no occasion to revert to the subject of money until July. What I  _do_ wish to discuss with you is your state of mind. These outbursts of mania that your brother spoke of. When did they first begin?"

"My good man," I said, "if you continue to insist that I am a French tradeswoman instead of an English lady, I do not see how we can possibly converse to any good purpose. I have had no outbursts of mania; but if you attempt to prolong this conversation without acknowledging its absurdity, I may very soon experience my first. I will try to make it an impressive one. I know you must be a connoisseur."

In the end, however, I judged it the better part of valor to respond with silence. I had determined already that they were dividing the inmates into categories based on how tractable they were supposed to be. I had no wish to be assigned to whatever lower depths contained the cells of those designated _agites_. I contented myself with repeating my story to every human being who attempted to interact with me, from Berthe to the work-mistress to the gardeners who maintained the floral borders of the courtyard where we took our exercise. They were indeed determined to keep the place as sunny, cheerful, and pleasant as it could possibly seem from the outside. "Excerise" consists of walking round the perimeter of the courtyard, then turning and walking round it in the other direction, two by two, in one long line. I found myself arm in arm with my blonde consumptive from that morning. Her name is Claudette, and she is here because her husband caught her trying to destroy their newborn baby. She speaks of this with shame; but I have the sense that on the whole she is relieved to be away from her child. She does not have the restlessness that I see in some of these women. She tends rather to lethargy, and by the end of our exercise-time was leaning on my arm. This langour has given her a sort of glamour that attracts the eyes of all around her. At least so I deduce, from the amount of attention we drew from a gardener who knelt by one of the brick walls, setting some brightly-colored flowers with striped pink bells into the earth and tamping it down. He stared, quite frankly, at my young companion, with a pair of blue eyes whose piercing keenness was remarkable even when half-screened by a shock of abundant and somewhat matted black hair. 

I am compelled, I have discovered, to leave this diary behind in my cell during the day. I cannot therefore record every occurrence of note that has passed today. It is true that I will never forget my first visit to the department of Hygiene; but it is best to draw a veil over  _that._ I will also, in future, have to pass up the evening dose of laudanum, as it makes me almost too sleepy to write after supper. I am satisfied, however, that if I accomplished nothing else of note today, I have made myself the topic of gossip all over the  _Maison des Alienes_. I have discovered that insisting on always being given one's full title when addressed is not endearing to people, but it is memorable.

****

June ---, 1891.

In the moments I have to myself after dawn and before the breakfast bell, I may as well recount how I came to this place. It will be an amusing tale to read by the fire in my old age--that is, if we are allowed to have fires here. My room has a grate, but as the days are very warm, it has yet to be lit. It had never occurred to me before to wonder how places like this managed their heating, with so many inmates who can't be trusted near an open flame.

I met the Schlessingers for the first time at breakfast, some eight days ago, at the Hotel National. They were--are? I confess I wonder where they have got to, and whether they managed to get the jewels out of my trunk or have absconded with the whole thing in hopes of finding a better locksmith or safecracker--sitting together, alone, at a table for four, and as the salle a manger was crowded that morning I asked if I might join them. Dr. Schlessinger is a fascinating conversationalist, with a wealth of stories about parts of the world to which I have never ventured. Probably only some of them were lies invented expressly to ensnare me. It is true that one had to listen to a great deal of pious cant about souls and salvation; but I did not mind. I was used to it. The nobility are the only people in this country who still listen to the Church, and the Church one of the last institutions that listens to the nobility. And Dr. Schlessinger, at least, had the physical courage to bring his convictions to places where they weren't wanted. It was in the course of his last mission to the Argentine, he told me, that a pirahna had fastened upon his left ear, and reduced it to its jagged and torn condition. As Dr. Schlessinger wears his hair long, however, his appearance is not much hurt by this. 

A day or two after our breakfast together, then, the Schlessingers and I were much in each other's company. We made excursions, sometimes in the company of other Hotel National inmates. There was a Norwegian by the name of Mr. Sigerson who came with us for a picnic at the lakeshore; a great, broadshouldered, blonde giant of a man, with a magnificent mane of flaxen hair. His command of English was extremely limited, and his French only slightly less minimal. He took, I say without vanity, an uncommon interest in  _me._ It is no reflection on my personal attractions; I know only too well that a single woman in this setting always attracts admiration, much of it from widowers or men like this Sigerson who have attained middle age before they stopped to think of a wife. What these men always want, in the end, is someone to manage their housekeepers and cooks and any children they may have from previous marriages. I therefore try to avoid being left alone with them. At any rate, he did not accompany us on the excursion to the asylum, objecting that it was not a fit place for ladies even as visitors. When our trap drove out of the hotel gates, I could see him sitting in a basket-chair in the sun, pretending to read a newspaper while actually napping.

We were greeted cordially at the gates of the asylum--the Schlessingers understood about tipping--and I must say I honestly enjoyed the tour of the grounds, the work areas, the library, and the baths. We were unable to visit the residential areas, as we were a mixed party, and the rooms are strictly divided into a men's wing and a women's wing. Well, I have been able to satisfy my curiosity very fully since then. When we returned to the Great Hall, Dr. Schlessinger walked over to a tall desk behind which sat a man in green serge on a very tall stool. Mrs. Schlessinger took my arm and guided me after him. I noted that the man behind the desk was giving instructions to a group of four heavy-set women of grim aspect. They dispersed as the man behind the desk turned his attention to Dr. Schlessinger. 

I was astonished to hear him introduce himself as M. Armand Pierre, and introduce me as his poor sister Lucille.

I protested immediately--and loudly. Mrs. Schlessinger's grip upon me became as hard as iron. I broke free at last and made a dash for the door. The four women of grim aspect laid hands upon me and dragged me, shouting and furious, back to the desk. As the man behind the desk attempted to explain to me that I was being placed in their hands by my brother, and that all would be well as long as I was a good girl, a paroxysm of rage and fear possessed me. I writhed; I bit; I kicked; I screamed. I was seized by numerous hands and brought to the floor, where my head was grasped by a pair of vice-like hands while another hand held over my nose and mouth a drenched and sickly-sweet smelling rag.

In case I forget this detail, as I am evidently expected to forget everything else while I rot here, let me note that a chloroform headache is the  _worst possible_ headache. Even after the initial pain has subsided, the giddiness and nausea that one feels upon recovering one's senses after being chloroformed are extremely distracting. It was several minutes, after I regained consciousness, before I noticed that I was in an unfamiliar nightdress, in an unfamiliar room, which had been locked from the outside. A brief search revealed that all of my possessions had been taken from me. The blank diary, pen, and ink were ready on the nightstand. Evidently I was to begin the story of my life anew.

That the Schlessingers are not German missionaries is clear. I can think of no motive for this outrageous deception unless it is to extort my brother for ransom, or else merely to despoil me of the little I possess. My jewels, clothes, and luggage were all back at the hotel. How they planned to explain my non-return from the asylum, I do not know; but as everyone in this hotel has seen me enjoying myself in their company for days on end, I have no doubt that some plausible story has been invented by them to explain my departure. 

That wretched bell has rung again. I am not feeling hungry in the least. I will trade some of my porridge for Claudette's 'milk,' and fortify myself doubly against another long and tedious day of imprisonment.

****

June ---, 1891

What a night! All the laudanum in the world could not make it possible for me to sleep at this moment, even under more propitious circumstances. How fortunate it is that I have retained this diary, and the pen, and sufficient ink--I hope!--to record this incredible narrative. I have never learned the first thing about telling stories, and it is daunting to have to tell this one now. Where shall I begin? What to emphasize, what to diminish, and what to pass over entirely? Such freedom! Such responsibility! Such a difficult work lies before me, and how sharply I long to complete it!

Let me begin with poor Claudette. On the afternoon of the day I made my latest diary entry, I was distressed to find her absent at exercise. One of the more sensible inmates--her reason is largely untouched, but I have never met a human being more mired in gloom and sadness--told me that Claudette had been coughing up blood last night, and has been sent to the infirmary. I was more pained to hear of this than I should have expected. During exercise, I was thus without a walking partner; we were now an odd number, and nearly all of the other inmates have one "particular friend" that they always choose at this time. I was trailing along at the tail end of the line when I happened to catch the eye of one of the gardeners--the same black-haired, blue-eyed, long-limbed fellow who had been making eyes at Claudette the other day. As I passed, I saw out of the corner of my eye a furtive hand motion, as if he had tossed something into my path. I knelt down to fiddle with one of my shoes. In the process, I scooped up a small, dirty, folded piece of paper, small enough to conceal in my palm and then tuck inside the sleeve of my blouse. Knowing that we were always searched after exercise, I passed it at the first possible opportunity into a small gap that had opened up in my bodice, where some of the stitches had given way. With it pressed against my heart, I passed safely through the search, and on to our inevitably disappointing dinner.

I was, of course, in a state of pitiable anticipation all day--for until I was readying myself for bed, I had no opportunity of examining the paper in secret. Finally, after I heard the key turn in the lock, I removed it from my sleeve and unfolded it. Despite all the warmth and the crumpling, the creases were still sharp. It was good quality paper, only partially softened by the dirt and moisture it had absorbed. On it was printed, in pencil, in English: RESCUE AWAITS. REPLY WITH PRECISE LOCATION, NEXT EXERCISE. SIGERSON.

Sigerson! That big, bluff, Teutonic giant of a man, whose advances I had avoided, had suddenly become the only object of my affections and the only subject of interest to me. I turned the paper over, scribbled the number assigned to my room with some brief directions as to its relation to the stairwells, refolded it, and secreted it once more within the lining of my bodice. At the next exercise session, my gardener was there again. I passed him the paper--very capably, I fancy--and he, just as capably, received it. He tucked it into one of his fingerless gardening gloves, actually tugged his forelock, and moved unobtrusively away from me. I looked up, and saw Berthe's baleful eye upon me.

Berthe, however, is a woman of limited intelligence and no imagination. She suspected me, indeed--of attempting to enter into an understanding with the gardener, who was evidently a pet of hers. Fortunately, as I no longer had the paper on me, her unnecessarily rough search of my clothing at the end of exercise turned up nothing unusual. I was so full of terror and joy, as I anticipated my "rescue" by Sigerson--or perhaps by his accomplices--that as soon as Berthe locked me in that night, I got up and dressed myself. I concealed this diary inside my bodice, right next my heart, and laid down upon the bed.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the key turned in the lock. Against the light of the hallway, I saw the silhouette of a woman. My disappointment was sharp; my apprehension sharper. It was Berthe, come to catch me out--and she would find me dressed for flight, with my one possession secreted on my person. 

She shut the door softly behind her. There was the hiss of a match, and I saw two hands lighting a dark-lantern. My heart began to beat again. The hinged door of the lantern was open, and a beam of light illuminated the face of my companion. There was a cap; there was a mop of frowzy gray curls. But this was not Berthe. It was, in fact, the dark-haired gardener!

"Oh sir," I breathed, in a faint and fading voice. "Have you come to take me out of this place?"

He nodded. "The only difficulty," he whispered, in perfect English which he spoke with a surprisingly pure accent, "is where you go from here. Have you any friends nearby? In the character of an escaped madwoman you cannot expect much of a welcome from strangers."

"Why," I said, with some surprise. "I shall go straight from here to the police! What else should I do?"

"Remember," the gardener hissed back at me, "that you have no means of proving who you are, that your French is not fluent, and that the director of this institution believes that you are its rightful property. The Schlessingers are old hands at this, madam; they will have poisoned everyone within a ten mile radius of this place against you. You will be safe only with someone who knows you by sight. Where is the nearest person who knows you by sight?"

"Why can I not simply return to the hotel?"

"Madam," he hissed, more sharply, "you have been in this asylum for two weeks. The Schlessingers have been busy in your absence. If you return to the hotel, you will find the staff far less eager to assist you than before. It is common in the hotel business for confidence tricksters to pass themselves off as nobility, enjoy the credit extended to them, and then leave without paying their bills. I have done it myself, on occasion." 

"What about Mr. Sigerson?" I said. "He knows me, and obviously he trusts me!"

Here he let out a vexed and frustrated sigh. "Madam, I _am_  Mr. Sigerson."

"No!" I gasped. "But--but how--"

"Wigs, paint, padding, and the collected works of Henrik Ibsen," he said, impatiently. "Madame, there is no time to stand attired in wonder. We must move. I repeat: where is the nearest person who knows you by sight?"

"Calais," I replied, at last. "If we can reach Calais, we can find my old governess Miss Dobney. She settled there, and we are still in touch. She will know me; she will help me."

"Quite a journey," he observed, grimly. "But any destination is better than none. Come with me, Lady Carfax, and I beg you, do not make a SOUND."

Under cover of darkness, and with the aid of a ring of keys which my preserver had evidently lifted from one of the monitors, we made that harrowing journey through the corridors and down the stairs to the tradesman's entrance. He unlocked the door. How exhilarating it was to feel the air on my face--to breathe freely, unobserved, and on the  _other_ side of that locked door!

The ink! I must abridge. Of the scramble over the wall, I must say little. Of our long march through the countryside, even less. Of the finding of a deserted barn, still half-full of hay but empty of livestock, into which we bundled ourselves, almost nothing. At last, sitting on the boards, with the dark lantern before us, my preserver divested himself of cap, wig, and uniform. Underneath the dress, he was wearing--I discovered with some amusement--several suits of clothing. It was even more astonishing to discover that he had actually found a means of concealing a violin case amongst his skirts. This he deposited carefully upon the boards, after removing from yet another region of his crinolines a violin bow. 

"My goodness," I said. "What is all this? Are we to have a concert for the cows?"

"If I thought I could risk it, I would," he said. "Playing it is the only pleasure left to me--and also, now, my only legitimate source of income."

Having been reminded by his rejoinder of our dire circumstances, he began searching through the pockets of his suits for coins. While he was thus occupied, I withdrew behind a bale of hay, undressed, removed my corset, put on my clothes again, and returned. 

I threw the corset down onto the clean boards. The whalebone clattered. His face, when he looked up at me, was priceless. I felt he was beginning to wonder whether he had after all rescued a genuine madwoman.

I removed a large, rusty nail from a nearby stall and began sharpening its point against a stone.

"My dear Lady Carfax!" he said, alarmed. "Please put that down before you injure yourself. I know what tetanus is, but I have no idea how to treat it."

The point having been cleaned and honed, I began, methodically, to rip open the seams in my corset.

He cried out, at first, as if I had stabbed a living thing. But as he watched me peel back panel after panel of yellowed satin to expose the layers underneath, he fell silent. I removed all of the things that I had so carefully sewn into it before departing London: banknotes, letters of credit, various lightweight tools, and numerous documents. Lastly, I lifted, between two fingers, a scrap of blue cloth onto which I had embroidered a sort of glyph combining a circle, a straight line, and a rectangle. The embroidery hoop, the distaff, and the book.

My preserver stifled, just in time, a howl of vexation.

"It's no good, Mr. Holmes," I smiled, as he nearly bit his own fist in his rage. "I am rescuing you, and there is nothing you can do about it."

To his credit, he did not flee, or lash out, or lie to me. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and regarded me with a smoldering glare meant to reduce me, metaphorically speaking, to ashes.

"I have no doubt that you and the Society mean well," he said, curtly. "But Lady Carfax, I must say that this is quite indefensible. In order to indulge your own sense of adventure, you have baited me into exposing myself to the very dangers I am seeking to--"

"Now," I cut in. "It seemed to us that the greatest difficulty facing us, after we located you, was the passports. You have, of course, lost yours; and in any case you can't travel under your own name. Hence this collection of six forged passports, three British and three French."

I indicated them. Against his will, he was drawn to lift them out of the lining of my corset and begin scrutinizing them.

"How did you find me?" he said, with a grudging sigh.

"I didn't," I answered. "I let you find me."

He looked up. The fire in those blue eyes was quite daunting, even after everything else I had been through.

"Well, of course we did have some clues to go on," I said. "It was Morstan's idea to start with theaters. You would naturally need numerous aliases and disguises, and where else could you find them as easily as the wardrobe of a theater? We identified theaters that had recently been burgled and began from there. There are over a dozen of us carrying out these operations, and the protocol is really very simple: when you think you've found a candidate, get yourself in trouble. If in fact you've found Mr. Sherlock Holmes, he will rescue you. If not, you simply rescue yourself, travel to another likely location, and repeat the procedure. This is my third such adventure. I have already broken myself out of a jail in Zurich and a gambling den in Monaco."

"And I suppose," said Holmes bitterly, "that you will tell me next that you are not really the Lady Frances Carfax at all."

"Oh no," I said. "I certainly am the Lady Frances Carfax. And the Schlessingers certainly knew that. I am afraid I will never see poor mummy's jewelry again. However, by the expedient of keeping the diary in print, I hope to have made it more difficult for them to get their hands on my annuity."

"Diary?"

I handed it to him. He read it, understood it, closed it, and returned it to me.

"Neatly done," he said, unwillingly. "They have a confederate or confederates, clearly, in the asylum, and arranged that you should have the diary so that they might get samples of your handwriting, with which to forge letters to your bankers. By keeping the diary, but keeping it in print, you prolonged your life there, for they would not make away with you entirely until they had your money. You deduced, of course, that under no other conditions would they have allowed a supposed madwoman free access to pen, ink, and paper."

"I did," I said.

"And therefore, you confided to it only what would convince them that you were safely stowed there, with no immediate prospect of escape."

I nodded. He sighed.

Then he reached across the circle, above the dark lantern, and extended his hand. I shook it, firmly. 

"I must congratulate you," he said. "You really did it very well. But why were you looking for me in the first place? I was under the impression that everyone in England believes me to be dead."

"Not everyone," said a voice from the darkness.

It was a man's voice, speaking English, with an Australian accent. 

Before I could breathe, Holmes whipped up the dark lantern and threw it into the darkness, aiming for the source of the voice. The lantern hit the packed earth outside the barn, and burst like a firework. In the glare of the flames, I saw Schlessinger and his wife in the doorway, both of them holding revolvers. 

Both of them shied away from the flames. Holmes grabbed an armful of hay, twisted it swiftly into a rope, and tossed it into the fire. I felt him grab my wrist and pull me down to the floor. A moment later, bullets sang over our heads. He grappled me to him, and laid his lips to my ear.

"Run," he hissed. 

"I did not come here to--" I hissed back, as we crawled crablike away from the doorway.

"If you came here to save me, then _run_ ," he whispered. "Get out of here and tell someone what's happened. The Schlessingers are not part of any organization. This is opportunistic. Now they know who I am, they will try to sell me to the rest of Moriarty's gang, and they have to find them first, and they will keep me alive until they do that, so if you  _run,_ it is just possible that I  _might not die!"_

There was a sudden  _pop,_ and some of the hay near the barn door burst into flame. I accepted the validity of his logic. But there was one thing I wanted to be sure he knew, before I left--and before either one of us died.

"Doctor Watson knows you're alive," I said. "He wants you home. He asked us to find you."

For a moment, his eyes shone, and his face looked almost beautiful.

"I'm sorry I botched it," I said.

Holmes drew an exasperated breath. "I was the one who allowed them to follow us. Don't blame yourself. But--just--RUN!"

I salvaged what I could in the dark, and I ran. 

I did not, however, go as far as Holmes probably intended that I should.

I have sent a coded telegram to Society headquarters. The Schlessingers will be traced. We will find him again, or my name is not--

FRANCES CARFAX

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not tagging this series as Granada Holmes because obviously it's not following Granada's timeline. Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge the influence that the Granada "Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" had on this story. Their adaptation really brings Frances to life as a character, and she has quite a touching friendship with Watson, before the baddies start to move in. My Lady Frances is obviously quite different; but if I hadn't seen that episode, I don't know that I would have been interested in revisiting that story.
> 
> What Lady Frances says about her own life in her first diary entry is quite true; she joined the Society because she was sick of all of that. The laudanum is true as well, though she is exaggerating it in order to lull the Schlessingers into a false sense of security.
> 
> The other influence I should cite is Sarah Waters's novel Affinity. Its main protagonist is very done with her life as a Victorian middle-class woman in so.e similar ways. It's a great novel and I will say no more about it.
> 
> By the way, [here's what the SSPL insignia looks like.](http://plaidadder.tumblr.com/post/174632345904/society-for-the-protection-of-single-ladies-flag)


End file.
